Abel Zhao
Co-Founder & CEO, FreeD Group. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutive
Abel Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of FreeD Group, an enterprise SaaS company providing proprietary AI solutions and digital commerce tools. Under his leadership, the company raised a $15 million Series B round and acquired Connexus Travel from Swire Group.
1shows
1appearances
16statements
1resolved
0supported
1contradicted
0%fully supported
Everything Abel Zhao said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Free D Group's largest enterprise contract is a $7M Korean smart city
“And then there's a big guys out there. So the governments or telcos or airports and stuff like that, that could actually go from a 100,000 dollars to all the way to seven million dollars per project. That's basically the largest one we have, which is a smart c…”
Charging SaaS fees improves enterprise customer stickiness more than free access
“Well, because actually when you're creating a SaaS feed that actually creates from the customer perspective, you don't charge them anything, actually that lowered the stickiness and then also lower the loyalty we find. And then, so when you charge them anythin…”
Free D Group expects $100 million in 2023 revenue, 50% ARR
“So we're hoping that actually with all those strategic alignments put into place, it will help us to achieve the a hundred million revenue this year. And the amount that at least we're looking at, hoping that at least 50% of that's ARR.”
Free D Group's take rate: under 2% in China, 10-20% in EMEA
“I mean typically, for example, if we, because actually we work with a wide range of suppliers for all the other the merchants from different markets, for example, if it's in China the other the take rate's actually quite quite, quite sad. We're talking about b…”
Large corporations generated 60-65% of Free D Group's 2022 revenue
“From the test fee side, one time solution to right now, if you look at 20, 22 number those actually, the total large corporation state takes about 60, 65%, and then the small merchants takes about 30%.”
Zhao says competing in B2C travel against Greater China incumbents is suicidal
“We realized that actually what we're trying to do on the B to C side, it's kind of, especially in this part of the market, greater China area, it's suicidal. So basically we cannot compete with the big guys.”
Free D Group processes approximately $20 million in quarterly GMV
“So last 30 days, I go for last quarter, it's around twenty million dollars.”
Bootstrapped Free D Group grew revenue from $14M in 2021 to $35M
“So 20, 21, we need about fourteen million revenue. And then this year, so so we closed 20, 20 to thirty five million.”
Free D Group acquired Hong Kong's largest travel management company
“So one of those actually we acquired two companies, whether it's in based in Hong Kong, which is the largest TMC company for the greater in the markets.”
Free D Group aims to IPO its travel unit at $250M+ valuation
“So for that particular entity, we're aiming to IPO in 24. So hopefully that actually gave us a but minimal IPO. We're looking at two hundred fifty million at least the evaluation.”
Free D Group's enterprise software requires 10% to 20% custom code
“For our SaaS models, for example, 80% of those actually are SaaS components. I mean, that means ready to use and ready to launch to the market, but because actually they're bigger guys, so they more or less have, they have around between 10 to 20% customizatio…”
Free D Group serves 70 to 80 paying SaaS customers globally
“Right now globally we have about 80, 70, 80.”
Free D Group generated less than $2 million in 2020 revenue
“So 20 20, when we first started to switch the business model from B to C to B to B to C so we only did around less than two million dollars in revenue in 2020, because actually that's when COVID first happened.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Abel's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Co-Founder & CEO, FreeD Group | 1 | 16 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Top Founders → |